Middle east: Israel has slightly eased restrictions on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, trapped in his West Bank office for nearly three months.

Sagiv Rotenberg, a spokesman for Israeli Security Cabinet member Avigdor Lieberman, said the cabinet voted to allow Mr Arafat to move around Ramallah. However, he will not be allowed to leave the town.

The decision followed the arrest by Palestinian security of three militants suspected in the assassination of Israeli Cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi on October 17, a key Israeli demand for lifting the blockade.

Israeli tanks surrounded Mr Arafat's Ramallah headquarters in early December, preventing him from leaving, demanding that Palestinian police arrest the assassins, the planners and leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility and said it was retribution for Israel's killing of the PFLP leader in August.

The original Cabinet decision demanded that those arrested must be extradited to Israel. The Palestinians have always refused to give up suspects, preferring to put them on trial in accordance with interim peace accords.

With the arrest of the three main suspects, some Israelis said it was time to lift the blockade against Mr Arafat. Cabinet minister Dalia Itzik of the moderate Labour party told Israel Radio yesterday that the quarantine had been ineffective in countering violence.

On the other hand, Mr Lieberman, from the ultranationalist National Union bloc, said he would pull his party out of the coalition government if the restrictions on Mr Arafat were cancelled.